The Agate Door

Good morning all. It is Autumn. Dark and dreary today with the spectacular colors of leaves lying on the ground awaiting their decay. We have finally received some rain after a dry summer. This time of year brings reflection and a desire to hunker down and get cozy.

In thinking of the Summer that has just passed I am reminded of the agate door. Along with workshops and mothering my children at home, I worked on a large unique project presented to me by Roundtree Construction out of Vershire, VT. Their customer requested a custom wooden front door with a panel of agate slices made in the copper foil technique.

Roundtree reached out to me and after taking on the proposition, I began the process of ordering Brazilian Agate slices and selecting and placing each slice into position. The customer requested natural stones which I would have suggested anyways based on the fact that over time, dyed agates in stained glass will fade in the sunlight. In the end the panel had over 400 agate slices.

Each and every slice was wrapped by hand in copper foil tape with the help of studio staff and when every one was in its place I began the process of soldering. This was by far the most unique soldering job that I have ever done. Agate slices are round and oval, so the geometry of that leaves large spaces between that need to be filled. I did add many little glass triangles but most of the space was filled with solder.

By the end of 3 days of solid soldering, with the help of my husband, daughter and my dear friend, Allyson Biondo of Rain Rose Glass we had used 10 pounds of solder! By far the most I have ever used on one panel. This thing was heavy!

The Window panel was patinaed with a black patina and framed in zinc. the need to bend the zinc for the top of the arched panel led me to purchasing a new tool for the studio! A zinc bender! Yay to new tools in the studio!

This job was very involved, challenging at times, and outside of my usual design style. In the end, I was proud. It is an amazing experience to be up close and personal with each small piece in a larger work.

This will be installed in the home someday soon and I will forever have had my hands on each little piece that created it. I hope that the owners find their favorite stones in there and discover a new one every now and then like I did.

I'll keep you posted if and when I get a picture of the door installed in the home. It may be a while as I hear it is a big job and this is just one small part.

Thanks for Roundtree Construction for reaching out to me and for all staff and family who had a part in the creation of the Agate Door.

xo,

Day